IS claims responsibility for massacring Sikhs, Hindus in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: The global terrorist group Islamic State (IS) on Monday claimed responsibility for Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing that left 17 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus dead among 21 people in Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

The attack was targeted at a delegation of Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu minority communities, waiting outside the governor’s house, to meet the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. In a statement issued on Monday, the IS claimed that it had targeted a group of “polytheists,” in a clear reference to Sikh and Hindu communities.

Once vibrant minority communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s bordering tribal regions, the Sikh and Hindu population has reduced to a few hundred due to unending war and terror in the region for the last three decades. Majority of them have migrated to India and western countries.

On Monday, the bereaved families carried the coffins of their loved ones to a temple for funeral. The communities protested against the government and the Afghan President for failing to provide them security. The delegation had an appointment with the President but it was postponed till afternoon. “As we were asked to step out of our vehicles for security checking outside the governor’s house, a bomber on foot, detonated his explosives,” Jagandar Singh, who lost his brother in the bombing, told a private news channel in Afghanistan.

Among the dead were Avtar Singh Khalsa, the only Sikh candidate running in Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections this year in October, and Rawail Singh, an active civil society activist based in Kabul. On his Facebook page, Rawail had a picture with his fourth-grade daughter, with a description, “My sweet daughter, learning to paint and study in the Afghan National Institute of Music.”

The IS, responsible for some of the most lethal attacks in past three years, established its foothold in eastern and northern parts of Afghanistan around 2015. Despite sustained military offensives against it by the US and Afghan forces, the group continues to pose serious challenges to authorities and carry out suicide bombings.

The IS was not part of Kabul’s recent 18-day ceasefire with the Taliban that expired on Friday. Following the ceasefire, the Islamic State carried out attacks in Nangarhar in which members of both the government and the Taliban were killed.